Scheduling people? Choose wisely.

 Saw a post from someone talking about how they always gave 2 weeks notice when they quit jobs. I have always done that too so they aren't left short handed by my exit.

Except once. At one of my first jobs I worked at a department store. I asked them to NOT schedule me on a day I had tickets to go see a world cup soccer match.

My manager was rude & dismissive of my request. Basically, I was told that I didn't have a right to request a scheduling accommodation. They scheduled me on that day anyway. I didn't show up and left them short handed. Why? Because I had tickets to see a world cup soccer match! I had told them I was not available that day. They could have used that information to schedule someone else that day. But they choose not to. 

It was their fault they were left short handed. It was a problem they could have easily avoided since I had in fact given them 1 months notice that I was not available to work that day and so to not schedule me. 

I never went back to the job. I just quit. I had no intention of working for people that didn't treat me as human or that wouldn't allow me to have a life outside work. I am still annoyed that the manager was so petty that they would rather risk being short staffed than schedule appropriately given known scheduling conflicts. 

Another time, when I was older, I asked my boss to let me go on a 2 month leave of absence so I could travel in Europe with my brother. He said yes, and I worked to make sure that my work got done and was covered while I was gone. When I asked him why he said yes, he told me he had a choice, either he could work WITH me to make sure that the work got done in my absence, or he would end up short staffed with people who didn't know exactly how to do my job because he knew I was going to either way. He chose wisely.

My point in telling you all of this is to encourage you to treat your employees as valuable collaborators with you. They are there to help you. The least you could do is treat them as humans. People aren't robots and you have no right to demand that they abandon their life in order to "serve" you. They don't serve you. They aren't servants. They are humans who have agreed to help you out with the work that needs to be done. Treat them with dignity and work with them instead of demanding obedience.